The Invasive Species Diet

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If life gives you invading Asian carp, rename it "Kentucky tuna."

Foraging is so 2010. So as we begin a new year, the New York Times' reports on the latest food movement in the making: behold the Invasivores. The Invasive Species Diet encourages the consumption of everything from road kill (raccoons anyone?) to overpopulations of deer as well as something increasingly rare, plentiful fish populations such as the destructive lionfish which can produce up to 2 million eggs per year. Also on the menu, kudzu and other wild plants, As Rachel Kesel, who counts herself among the members of The Compact, a group that has sworn off the purchase of anything new save for toothpaste, medicine, and underwear, puts it in precise Pollan-ese, "Eat weeds." (An Italian-inspired preparation, with garlic and olive oil, is shown below.)

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Using what there's a surplus of makes sense and I'm game to use more of the rosemary, amaranth, and anise taking over our garden but probably not the skunk that sneaks in there from time to time. And my recent viewing of the incredible film Winter's Bone, where the teenage protagonist shoots a squirrel for dinner, peels back its skin and then forces her younger brother to gut it with his hands, leads me to believe there may be some challenges to a broader adoption of the invasivore movement.